


and you put earth beneath my feet

by refuted



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, coach shaw, in which Root and Shaw have totally been boning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-28 21:52:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3871021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/refuted/pseuds/refuted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It first starts when Root tells her, “Don’t hold back” and ends with an uptick of the lips, growing, growing as she straddles Root with an arm against her throat and her palm on the floor holding the brunt of the weight. </p><p>(Or: Shaw teaches Root how to fight.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	and you put earth beneath my feet

**Author's Note:**

> for anon, who wanted something along the lines of Shaw getting to see Root in action, and feeling feelings.

Learning Shaw feels like torn limbs and an aching jaw; feels like a split in her lip and the inability to fully extend her arms and often feels like her back on the floor and her elbows scraped against hardwood.

“Again.”                    

On her knees, palm at her chest, Root looks up as Shaw looms above with crossed arms. Shaw’s skin is smooth, dry and unscathed and she wonders how many hits she’ll have to take before that changes.

She is a creature of 1s and 0s. Of delicate hands painted in deepest black, accustomed to careful, precise work. She supposes it’s the first of many reasons why Shaw pushes hard and heartless until her nails are chipped and her knuckles worn.

“Again.”

 

It first starts when Root tells her, “Don’t hold back” and ends with an uptick of the lips, growing, growing as she straddles Root with an arm against her throat and her palm on the floor holding the brunt of the weight. Her breath flutters hot at her jaw and Root knows she won’t, not ever. Shaw throws her in the deep end, pulls her out just before she drowns completely and Root forgets what nothing feels like.                                                                                   

 

Learning Shaw feels like getting brought to the ground in a hold that Root has seen her use before:

Neck pulled into the crook of her knee, wrist held against sharp collarbone and Shaw’s foot hooked around her calf to smother.

Black creeps along the edge of her vision, clouding, clouding until the heady scent of sweat and skin and Shaw fills her head with thoughts of leaving marks right back, not entirely unlike the ones she’ll examine in the morning.

Sucking bruises down her throat, scraping teeth along her mouth -

Briefly, she pictures making it out on top and the idea is so absurd she laughs a little.

(Must be the lack of air.)

Root doesn’t get up when Shaw releases her. Splayed on the floor, she shuts her eyes. The room goes silent except for uneven gasps that peter into quiet, pulse in her ears, sweat beading into damp hair.

Hard but not cruel, Shaw lists her mistakes then moves on.

“Take a break,” she says eventually and it doesn’t sound quite like pity, but Root imagines the accompanying glance over her shoulder and it’s almost the same. 

Determined (stubborn and proud), Root feels her head shake, ignores the tremble in her legs when she pushes up. “Why, are you tired?”

Shaw laughs, her voice easy when she says, “Just hungry.” She rolls her neck in a move that’s maybe intended to throw her as off balance as it does, exposing soft skin and outlines of lithe muscle, a vein just under her jaw that pulses life. “After this, you’re buying me dinner.”

 

She lasts forty seconds on average, not counting the five she holds out when Shaw brings her down. Root waits seconds the length of infinity before she taps out.

 

Root learns Shaw’s favorite moves (there are many) and commits them to memory, recognizes them but never in time.

Rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat until learning Shaw becomes the bruise on her arm that finally gets to heal and a shiner Shaw wears like a medal that John doesn’t ask about but won’t hide staring at until he nearly receives a similar injury.

They agree then to aim below the chin.

Shaw scoffs when she catches Root’s gaze linger just a moment too long on her neck. _I’d like to see you try_ , she doesn’t say but the challenge is there, ringing so loudly that Root doesn’t realize passing the minute mark until she’s on her back and Shaw is standing above, tapping at her watch with a raised brow.

 

Shaw never tries to help Root up.

She wouldn’t take the hand.

 

Root never comes out on top. Sometimes she stays on her feet and most times there is blood, pooling under the skin of her back, flushing into her cheeks; bites of food that taste of copper when she licks her lips. She watches red mix with soap and sweat down the drain and it’s progress when she sees the color fade each time.

Progress sounds like heavy breathing, pulse in her throat and Shaw’s stifled grunt, the fleeting hint of victorious surprise when she finally lands a blow. Her knuckles throb with the impact and it’s a welcome ache; she’s still grinning when her cheek presses into the floor and her arm is twisted behind her back.

Root counts to six before she taps out, watches Shaw watch her with a flicker in her eyes that she thinks is something like approval.

A goading grin, Shaw’s gaze trailing slowly down the length of her, back up to meet her eyes and this is a look she hasn’t seen before; it settles sharp in her chest, between her legs, sends a heat up the back of her neck.

“Want me to wipe that smile off your face?” Shaw says and Root pictures her stepping closer, closer, closer to do just that.

There’s a comeback somewhere along the lines of _please_ and _I dare you_ that makes it to the tip of her tongue but she only purses her lips and readies her stance.

Progress is never pinning Shaw, but making it past two minutes, slipping out a hold meant to disable, connecting her fist with ribs and knowing it’ll bruise. Root collects her victories in the time it takes to get Shaw panting and it grows shorter, shorter, shorter until they are only moments apart.

Root suspects that she’ll never beat Shaw in a fight, but she won’t go down easily.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The list of things Shaw likes extends to Bear and beer and steak and she couldn’t care less if Root came into the library with an extra bullet hole, except the mess would likely keep her from a number.

Teaching Root has nothing to do with the newest scar that rises red and wrinkled along her arm, blemishing delicate skin with another reminder of the war they’ve somehow started.

(Once, she’d have never given it a second look.)

 

A numberless afternoon: Shaw wrestles with Bear while John plays detective and Finch tells her “Ms. Groves is alive.” He has his back to her, his eyes focused entirely on his computer and it’s a nothing sort of statement. Intended just for her. “In Japan, from what I gather. She sends her regards.”

She doesn’t dwell on whatever it’s supposed to _mean_ exactly and that is that until Root waltzes into her apartment days later with twenty-four ounces of sirloin and a six pack in tow, resplendent and long-limbed and with an inflated assurance in knowing that she's the only person in the world Shaw won’t shoot on sight for breaking in.

Root drives the point home by locking the door behind her.

Shaw doesn’t miss people. Not in her wiring, even when she listens close and if she could, she thinks she’d never miss Root.

The woman is never gone for long. Shaw trusts that Root is always going to come back and she’s still trying to figure out how she feels about it.

“Miss me?” Root says with a smile that is familiar and easy, but falters at the corner of her mouth as she slips out of her coat. Shaw spots the adhesive bandage that covers her bicep, automatic and already she’s reaching for her med kit.

(She realizes now that she’s constantly scanning Root for wounds to tend.)

Shaw watches Root move tight and slow, thinks that maybe she should pay Hersh a visit.

“You’re the one who won’t stay away.”

Root hums a single, low release of breath. “Couldn’t if I tried.”

 

Teaching Root certainly has nothing to do with the incision nestled just behind her ear.

She pulls the old bandage back, cleans the wound and wonders idly if her faith had ever faltered. Wonders not-so-idly how much she suffered before getting free and maybe Control deserves her company more.

Shaw tries to pinpoint the moment when she decided to help keep Root in one piece, but there’s nothing. Never a line she remembers crossing and maybe that’s what Root wanted all along. Smothered in sweet nothings and blatant come-ons so she’d never notice her boundaries broken and it’s fucking annoying, getting taken by surprise.

Root is impressive with a gun, surprisingly efficient with two, but it’s not always going to be enough and she finds herself saying mostly as much (holds off on the compliment) when Root hasn’t made a sound since she started redressing the wound.

“I’m a big girl, Shaw,” she says flatly. “I can take care of myself.”

For all its omniscience, the super computer is kind of useless at keeping Root from bleeding, which is ridiculous considering the shit she does without question. Puts herself in stupidly dangerous situations, unwavering in her beliefs and the disparity leaves her angry, leaves a bad taste in her mouth that doesn’t wash away with swigs of beer.

Root would die for the thing, which would worry her if she were the type to admit it.

“The Machine can’t help when you run out of bullets.”

Root turns around, her gaze searching, searching, and this smile forms slowly, doesn’t falter and reaches her eyes (reminds her of a grate and a blowtorch) when she says, “I have you.”

 

These are the steps to a dance:

Two steps forward, one step back, a push and a pull that never reaches equilibrium and Root seems to like the imbalance.

Makes sense.

Shaw has come to understand that they are survivors of a different breed, but at the core, they are of the same makeup.

Sameen Shaw has never been weak, but she has never been big.

Get them off balance, throw them off-kilter; Shaw has always loved the rush of bringing a man twice her size down to his knees. She expects Samantha Groves of small town Bishop to have had it all the same.

She sees the flicker of her for the first time in a courthouse, in the throes of a rigged election, sees the sullen southwestern girl she must have been before she ever had a god at her back. Traces of Sam Groves flit in and out when Root grows tired and beaten and broken – the times are few, but they make an impression all the same.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Root fucking hates it when Shaw pins her and Shaw seems to know it.

She recognizes the way Shaw winds up, just a moment too late and knows it’ll happen –

Shaw has her feet out from under her.

Her back takes the brunt of the impact as a frustrated growl tears itself from the back of her throat. Shaw locks her against the mat with a bright and feral glint in her eyes matched only by the grip on her wrists.

It’s when she knows she’s close.

When she lands one too many blows, Shaw grows _savage._ Vicious and unforgiving and she presses her knees into the sides of her waist just to prove the point.

“Had enough?”

She’s grinning triumphantly, a stupid, smug turn of mouth that possesses Root – it’s all she’s thinking of when she pushes up and sinks her teeth into the crook of Shaw’s neck. 

(Later she remembers thinking only of the sound Shaw makes, a faint fleeting gasp that’s gone as soon as she hears it and all she thinks of after is how she can get Shaw to make the noise again.

And again and again; she might languish in the sound of Shaw come undone.)

Root pulls back quickly enough but Shaw is faster, has her hand around her throat – tight enough to hurt but not harm and she’s not sure if they’re still sparring.

Shaw gauges her with a tight set in her jaw, eyes narrowed but she doesn’t look angry, exactly.

Root licks her lips, tastes traces of Shaw.

She won’t apologize.

Then Shaw’s leaning in. She bites down on Root’s bottom lip, hard, until she draws blood and a quiet yelp; licks into her mouth with red staining her tongue. 

A push and a pull, Root follows when Shaw shifts up, makes a sound that starts deep and rough at the back of her throat, vibrates into Root and she swallows it down.

Shaw pulls away, breathing in short pants. Root hates the absence, loves the sting on her lips when it hits cold air, tilts into her, planting a trail of quick slippery kisses up her jaw, to her ear until Shaw’s fingers are at her chin, pulling her back and she opens her mouth wider, breathes her in.

Root pushes her thigh between Shaw’s legs, pressing hard until she feels the hitch in Shaw’s breath. Pulls against the back of Shaw’s neck to keep herself up, digs crescents into her arm – Shaw still won’t let Root come out on top, but she lets herself think she’s maybe won this.

 

Learning Shaw feels like eager hands raking nails down her back, leaving red marks that rise like the grooves of her scars. Skating her touch around the bruises that flower Shaw's ribs and gasping into Shaw’s neck when she presses into hers.

Not an inch of Shaw that Root doesn’t try to map and memorize.

(Reads every part of her and recites it like a poem.)

 

 

* * *

 

 

“I’d say we have to stop meeting like this,” Root says, smiling that way she does when a situation calls for anything but. She’s bleeding from her temple, hair mussed, liner smeared and she has somehow lost her guns. “But I kind of like it.”

“What a mess.”

It is.

“Oh, come on Sameen.” She steps over a pair of Decima agents, coming in an inch too close.

Root looks at her keenly, head tilted, lower lips caught between her teeth. “You like it too,” she says with a silvery lilt like she knows she’s right.

She is.

Shaw considers closing the distance – and she realizes it’s a stupid idea because fucking _Decima_ – but the scent of gunpowder and rust and Root, Root looking dirty and disheveled and it really has been a while this time, digs into the banks of her resolve. Maybe if she leans in a little first…

Root looks up with a glaze in her eyes that she recognizes immediately.

Shaw swallows down the accompanying annoyance, wonders if she’ll always have to share.

“Hold that thought.”

 

Only Root could take someone down with one of her own moves and make it look like she’s always known how.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Root keys into her hotel room long past late. Pushes back against the door as it shuts with a quiet click, closes her eyes with every intention of crawling over to the mattress the moment her legs begin to work again.

“It thinks you broke a rib.”

Shaw, perched on her bed, idly flipping through a Gideon Bible. There’s probably something to be said about that, but not tonight.

“Ask me about the other guy.”

Shaw tosses the book back into its drawer and walks into her space, close, Root just needs to dip her head a little.

She likes it more when Shaw steps up, likes the thought of meeting halfway but Shaw only takes the plastic bag that hangs from her wrist and steps back.

Root follows. She leans down and Shaw does end up meeting a little more than halfway, standing on her toes. A victory of sorts.

(Kissing Shaw feels like missing the last step up a flight of stairs.

Feels like she might fall, heart in her throat, beating too fast and not at all.

Shaw tastes of tequila and the way she talks, sharp and salty and smooth, and kissing her is often a push and pull, slow when she’s feeling decadent, lazy when she’s tired; Root has learned to read volumes in the movements of Sameen Shaw.)

“Several guys,” Root murmurs when Shaw pulls away.

Shaw meets her gaze and she has seen this look before. It is rare and so entirely Sameen, hidden under a realm of mild irritation but Root’s learned to find it in the set of her jaw, the dip in her brows, in her softest hints and she knows the word for this. It settles low in her stomach, blooming out to her chest and briefly, Root lets herself relish in what she suspects is something like concern.

Shaw leads her to the bed and doesn’t stand much taller after Root sits, that Root easily reaches out, has her fingers resting on her hips, warm underneath thin fabric.

“She sent you,” Root says, though it sounds like a question.

Shaw nods, making a lazy trail down Root’s arms, to her palms. She frowns at the broken skin along her knuckles. “Just can’t leave you alone, can I.”

“You’re the one who won’t stay away.”

Shaw ruffles through the bag and tears open a box of gauze. She wraps her hands, practiced, precise, reminds Root of so many days of blood and bruises and bandages.

“You couldn’t have called me before the fireworks?”

A sound forces itself out, between a huff and a snort and it’s an ugly noise, makes her feel worn and sends a cut of pain to her chest. “Sameen Gray the makeup counter girl, caught on camera at a Samaritan black site.”

“Root–

“ _Sameen_.”

Shaw stills, looks down, a little hurt maybe, a little angry and Root wants to soften the dip in her brows with her thumb but she’s just so tired. She breathes out, shallow and it still aches, leans forward and rests her forehead against Shaw.

“The cosmetic world may not be as exhilarating as your last job, but it keeps you alive.”

Shaw runs the back of her fingers along Root’s temple, into her hair. “I can help,” she murmurs eventually, an almost-whisper that she is entirely unfamiliar with.

“I know.” Root’s eyes slip shut as Shaw’s touch skims down the nape of her neck. “Will you stay?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

In the morning, Shaw brews coffee.

Blinks slow and sits quietly, palming a hot paper cup as steam wafts up, roast seeping into the air.

Root sleeps tangled in sheets with her nose pressed into her pillow. Looks beautiful even in the dim light, exhausted but peaceful and Shaw wonders how she would feel about looking so vulnerable. 

Root will wake and she’ll have to go.

Another country, maybe. Another identity and another threat that could very well kill her.

She isn’t worried.

Isn’t the type to admit it, but even if she were, Shaw trusts that Root’s always going to come back.

And she’s okay with that.


End file.
